Human Fallacy
by Lady Valmar
Summary: A death in Atlantis over a misunderstanding brings in the newly arrived Jane O'Connor to investigate. Is it a misunderstanding or is foulplay at work? Please read both the disclaimer and warning. I take no responsiblity for those who do not read it.


**A/N**: Okay after getting some tips from a few on SGAHC and around my place, I decided to relook at this fic and rewrite it. I have really changed it a lot since the first post so I hope you will like it better cause I know I do. There's always room for input, suggestions, advice etc. Also I think it was Tazmy who spurred me to relook at this, so thank you and I hope you like this one better. Lastly,thank you Pennydreadful, for beta-ing.

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Title: Human Fallacy (Perceptions) 

**A/N**: Formerly titled 'The Flamer's Death but due to advice I changed it and rewrote it.

Author: Lady Valmar

Beta: Pennydreadful

Genre: One Shot-Sociological Behavioral Study

Rating: T

Archives: FF, SGAHC

**Spoilers**: Season 2

Date: 05-13-06

Inspiration(s): NCIS, Numbers, Criminal minds. Sg.1 -Need, Legacy, Absolute Power and Entity. SGA: Hot Zone,GUP, Runner and The Lost Boys/the Hive.

Summary: A death in Atlantis over a misunderstanding brings in the newly arrived Jane O'Connor to investigate. Is it a misunderstanding or is foul-play at work? Please read both the disclaimer and the warning, I take no responsibility for those who do not read it and do not know the purpose of this fic. -Study of behavior.-

**Warning: This is a short fic for creative writing and is not meant in any way to be taken as hurtful or in any negative light. This is simply, I guess it would be called, a sociological study of causes and effects based on behavioral perceptions and an attempt to really 'investigate' the emotions of both the investigator and the killer (through others).**

**Disclaimer: I don't own Stargate Atlantis or any of the characters. Please note that I welcome advice, helpful and polite criticism but I will not read nor deal with flames or rude reviews, and will report them. So stuff not owned by Stargate Atlantis is mine and therefore please ask and do not infringe nor steal my original themes, concepts, ideas or characters please.**

**A/N**: Since becoming an avid fan of the above shows listed in inspiration, I really want to recommend anybody interested in writing a fic that has a criminal investigator in it or the like to check out those shows. NCIS tv show has a great website with fairly decent explanations about those types of jobs on cbs dot com.

… **.LV. **…

**Human Fallacy** (Perceptions)

By _Lady Valmar

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_This is the worst case I've seen in years_, Thought Jane, approaching the scene in the mess hall. 

The cook, in his late forties, had been presumably gunned down by one of the scientists in the technical wing under Dr. Rodney McKay and thankfully was easily apprehended. Jane walked around the crime scene scribbling notes on her pad of paper, if she was correct this was a matter of a misunderstanding between the deceased, Mr. Walker and the murderer, Dr. Bell.

Criminalist and Investigator Jane O'Connor had just come aboard with the new batch of crew from the Daedalus, thankfully to the luck of Atlantis and a small part of thought for the newly set up SGCIS. (Stargate Criminal Investigative Services - first introduced in my fic Going Commando). She was thankful she hadn't witnessed the incident but she was the first on the scene to investigate it.

It had been awful seeing that much blood and gore. It appeared the killer had dug out the man's eyes with a spoon and from a few scattered reports proceeded to threaten all present in the mess hall with some sort of alien weapon screaming about duty, dishonor and the Wraith.

Upon further investigation, she discovered the reason behind the attacker's reasoning; the man had written something called a flame in response to something the scientist had posted online. At first Jane hadn't known what a flamer was until further inquiry divulged the term's meaning.

A flamer to her surprise was someone who gave a bad review to a writer without anything helpful or particularly useful in their review, all the while writing their review as an attack on the writer's conduct, lack of character, or whatever it may be.

To Jane's amazement the scientist had taken something that had occurred just one time and blown it completely out of proportion by seeking out Mr. Walker and proceeding to make a public execution of him. He had been another possible writer who had posted his review anonymously through the newly set up Internet on Atlantis. Jane couldn't understand why either had taken the piece of questionable information posted online so seriously. She saw no reason for what Dr. Bell had proceeded to do.

It had been a simple status report of Atlantis's dealings with the wraith and the Dr.'s own reflections and opinions of it. So why Walker would post anonymously or even bother to comment at all was beyond Jane.

It was undeniable true that perhaps Mr. Walker shouldn't have been so rude about it but for Dr. Bell to take it to the level of murder in the first degree...was ridiculous thought Jane.

After interviewing all the witnesses and thoroughly taking pictures of the crime scene, she took her notes and camera along with the bags of evidence and put in it in her wip office before walking to Dr. Bell's room. It seemed untidy, and smelled faintly of dust and some musky perfume. As she examined the room, she found it was no more untidy than her own at the moment but the lines of code printed out and posted to the walls and balled up paper wads all over the floor was definitely not the type of mess she had.

Proceeding to the laptop, she pushed her curling brown bangs out of her eyes to look for evidence. The laptop was a Dell, as were almost all the laptops on Atlantis, but it had some unusual wires and a box hooked up to it. Most noticeably was that its screen had been smashed to pieces and some of the keyboard buttons were torn off.

After finishing her observations and work in the suspect's room, she left only to run into a familiar person stalking down the nearly empty hall, the Astrophysicist, Dr. Rodney McKay.

"Ah...Dr. McKay?" said Jane, apprehension in her voice.

"Yes what?" snapped the man, sniffling slightly.

She could tell he wasn't exactly feeling well. He had a tissue in one hand and a bottle of cough medicine in his other hand. "Is there anything more that you can tell me about Dr. Bell?"

"Huh...oh...ah..." said Rodney, his congested nostrils flaring slightly, "Well let's see...she wasn't very loud and mostly did her work quietly in the larger lab area, sometimes with Dr. Zelenka or on a rare occasion myself but you already knew that...hm..."

"Did you at any time sense she was...how do I put this...unstable?"

"Unstable...no...not really. Though I did catch her occasionally doing sneaky things..."

"Like?"

"Well she ah...tried to take my laptop without my permission, one time," said Rodney, coughing harshly.

Jane hated to be rude, and knew she needed to be thorough to bring all the evidence against the woman, but she really didn't need a cold; she had just gotten over one already. "And what did she do when you questioned her about it?" said Jane, backing away casually.

Rodney hesitated. Should he say he yelled at her and nearly had the woman in tears?

"Well...she mostly laughed it off. I, of course..."

Suddenly Jane's radio crackled to life startling both herself and Rodney. "Agent O'Connor?"

"Yes?"

"She's escaped. I don't know how it happened..."

Jane looked at Rodney; his eyes were glued to a point somewhere behind her.

"Escaped? More like I kicked their butts. So you were saying Rodney? He wasn't going to tell you he yelled at me, was he?" said a feminine voice nearby.

Standing behind the two of them was Dr. Lucy Bell. Jane was careful not to reach for her hidden gun concealed under her jacket. "Dr. Bell."

Both Jane and Rodney looked at the murderer. She was wearing a dirty uniform, her hair was soaking wet and the whites of her eyes were visible. In her hand was the strangest weapon either herself, or Dr. McKay had ever seen, it appeared to be some sort of machine gun only there was a bulb of purple gas swirling near the back of the gun. The trigger, which Lucy had her twitching finger on, was long and red.

"Put your hands where I can see them. Hello Dr. McKay," slurred Dr. Bell, her eyes full of rage.

"Lucy...listen to me. Put the gun down. You're not getting off Atlantis. There are four security teams searching for you and they are going to arrive any minute now. So why don't we just..."

Sure maybe she was bluffing but she had no doubt that there were teams out looking for Dr. Bell...she just didn't know how many.

Lucy shook her head. "SHUT UP! It doesn't matter now does it? I don't care any more. You people think you can boss me around and then that man can...I won't take this anymore. We are all going to die out here and you...people," shouted Lucy, pointing the gun at Rodney, "Don't give a wit about whether some of us don't want to put our lives in danger for a hopeless cause. We need to leave Atlantis and go back to Earth where we can help with the problems in our own galaxy. Forget the Wraith. We will never win. Mr. Walker didn't get that and now he has paid the price for those of you who I wasn't going to spare anyways."

Rodney sneezed and froze. "Look...if you would..."

"NO YOU LISTEN! I've taken enough crap and insults from you to last a lifetime! I don't need you putting...putting your two cents into this. Right now, if somebody is going to listen and it's not going to be you..."

Jane could see this situation was quickly spinning out of control. She needed to calm the woman before any more deaths were added to this woman's charges. Slowly she reached up to scratch her ear, intending on opening the com and letting the security teams hear the situation.

Lucy leaned forward. "I don't think so!" she said, aiming the gun at Jane. "And you...don't you see it. We're hopeless. We can't possible defeat an enemy like the Wraith...and..."

From somewhere far behind her, a wraith stunner blast erupted, hitting Lucy square between her shoulders and knocking her unconscious to the floor. The gun flew out of her hands and sent a spiraling, purple-blue beam out making a hissing sound. All present froze. By some miracle the blast of the weapon hit only the wall, making a hole the size of a baseball. The security team rushed to handcuff Lucy as Jane strode over to inspect the weapon.

"That was close!" said Jane, looking over at Rodney. He only nodded and then promptly sneezed three times in a row. "You know I heard an old saying that if you sneeze three times it means someone was thinking of you."

He only glared at her, as he blew his nose into the overused tissue.

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Jane settled for the conclusion that in the future she would be more careful when investigating situations of this nature. She should have anticipated that the suspect would have returned to the room...but than again she hadn't known Dr. Bell had escaped until it was too late. 

She just didn't understand how Dr. Bell could have taken it so far over just one little thing but she guessed people took things, in general, sometimes too personally. Of course she couldn't forget the other things Lucy had said about never defeating the Wraith. Was it true though? Could Atlantis really defeat these Wraith? She had yet to see one herself...

As she finished up her report in the mess hall, as her office near Dr. Heightmeyer's was not yet set up, she was confronted by Dr. Weir and Colonel Sheppard.

"Agent O'Connor," said Sheppard, giving her a brief look.

"Well, do we know the cause of this?" asked Dr. Weir.

The investigation had been on going for about two days since the murder and already Jane had learned and experienced far more than she had really wanted. Atlantis, like any other city, did have its occasional, rare crime and that was what she was here for; but she had never thought that she and Dr. McKay would nearly become fatalities themselves.

"Yes Ma'am. From my careful investigation and review of the crime scene and interviews, and that encounter with Dr. Bell, I have learned that our killer was taking revenge on the victim for a bad review on one of her pieces of writing posted on our Internet about the fruitlessness of staying here in the Pegasus Galaxy. The man posted anonymously but she was able to hack into the system and find where he had posted from. Than she tracked him down until she cornered him here," said Jane, pointing at the bloodstained floor in one of the photos where the man's body had been removed, "shot him and then used a spoon to dig out his eyes. She then proceeded to threaten all present until security teams arrived and managed to restrain her. I have several witness accounts and information from the suspect as well to confirm this story."

Sheppard and Elizabeth both visibly tensed as Jane flipped closed the folder in her hands.

"So you're saying because the guy gave her one bad review she killed him over it?" asked Sheppard, his arms crossed in front of his chest, disbelieving it.

"No. It wasn't that. Thought that is what set her off. No, it appears, with the information from Dr. Heightmeyer, that the woman had been suffering bouts of stress and even Dr. McKay himself said she appeared to be conducting herself in a suspicious manner as the days leading up to this incident began."

"And, she was still able to hack the system to find him?" asked Dr. Weir, not really needing an answer for what she knew already.

"So a hacker…but I thought the system Rodney set up was unhackable," said Sheppard, looking between the two women.

"Apparently she was a really good at cracking the system. The term would be cracker not hacker."

"There's a difference?" said Sheppard, looking thoroughly unconvinced.

"Well at least from what I've been told there is apparently. If I'm not mistaken," said Jane, looking over at Dr. McKay who had just arrived, "that was why she was picked out by him. Not to mention she was very good at evasion...but I don't think anybody knew that."

"You mean misguided and overly touchy cracker! No, if I'd of known she was that unstable I would have never picked her," said Rodney, nearby sipping some of the coffee in his mug.

"Of course Rodney." said Sheppard.

"What? You think this is my fault?"

"No, but you didn't have to keep annoying her."

"Gentlemen," said Dr. Weir, "Please, Agent O'Connor, continue."

"Of course. There are only a few more questions I have for Dr. Bell and I would like those results you have Dr. McKay on the weapon. Once that is finished I will leave the original copy of the report on your desk and call it case closed. The rest will then be up to the good people back on Earth."

"Right..." said Rodney, handing her a folder.

"Do we know...if the weapon by any chance...is..." questioned Sheppard.

Rodney interrupted. "It's not Wraith. If that's that you're thinking. It's also not from Earth, nor Genii made or Gou'ld or anything I've seen so far," said Rodney. "It has an alloy configuration which is really quite beautiful if you look at it. I mean some of the placements of those metallic slides appear to be strictly aesthetic."

"Do you know what it runs on?" asked Jane.

"Yes! Of course I...ehem..." said Rodney, hesitating when both Elizabeth and Sheppard glared at him, "...ehm...At this point it has much the same properties as a Wraith Stunner but it appears to act a lot like Ronon's gun. And there appears to be some type of organic material composed within the beam itself. I won't know more until I can get it back to the lab for further analysis.

"Alright I won't send the report out just yet then. You know where to find me Dr. McKay, when you have the rest of the results. Dr. Weir. Colonel," said Jane, nodding at them before leaving.

Two transporters later, she was standing outside her 'still a work in progress' office. Jane breathed a sigh of relief and leaned her head against the door.

Thank goodness…case almost closed.

She hadn't thought her first day on Atlantis she would have to deal with a murder case, let alone a two day one. Of course she had investigated murder cases that took longer, but still, in Atlantis?

Just goes to show that the strain of living under threat of attack from the Wraith and than dealing with a difficult boss combined with other things must have just finally made the woman explode. Jane Thought. The flame was just her breaking point, still, it lead Jane to wonder why didn't the woman stand up and speak out instead of holding it all in before something like this happened?

But she did speak out, thought Jane, and then went and killed a man over his reply. Why didn't she just go see Dr. Heightmeyer? Oh...speaking of that...

Jane turned her head to see Dr. Heightmeyer watching her from her own office door. "Dr. Heightmeyer."

"You must be..."

"Criminalist and Investigator...Agent Jane O'Connor, yes."

"I heard about the incident."

"Yes, it was...ah...enlightening I suppose," said Jane, fingering a curl.

"Well I have some free time between sessions if you would like to..." said Kate, pointing her open hand at her office.

"I..."

Jane was reluctant to spill her guts out to someone she had just met but after seeing what had happened to Dr. Bell, she changed her mind. "Sure." said Jane and she followed the Psychologist into her office.

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_Back in the Elizabeth's office_

"So a hacker…I mean... cracker? Nevermind. A Scientist that got disgruntled over time," said Sheppard.

"It looks to be that way…surprising isn't it," said Dr. Weir, putting the folder on her desk to the side and smiling slightly at Sheppard. "I am just concerned that something like this could happen again. I think the heart of the matter is that this woman felt no one was listening and then when someone finally did it was only in a negative light. Maybe if someone had just talked with her about it then this wouldn't have happened."

"Well, we know about it now. We can have Rodney set up a system to track e-mails. I mean, he was supposed to have done that already."

"I just mean if this happened once, it can happen again and we have no way of knowing who it will be."

"I think that it is a possibility but don't forget she had that gun too. So..."

"Right," said Elizabeth, her hand clutching the report a little. "It's just I don't doubt Rodney's ability but still can we really monitor all the e-mails on Atlantis?" asked Dr. Weir.

"Well, it's gonna have to be the best we can do. At least now we have an investigator on our hands finally," said Sheppard.

"That we do," said Elizabeth, grateful that the situation hadn't gone beyond what it did, as she prepared to finalize the information. Once Agent O'Connor sent the rest to her she would send it back in the next databurst to the SGC and send a copy along with Colonel Caldwell and Dr. Bell.

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**A/N: **Please, again, read the disclaimer and warning at the beginning of this fic, if you haven't already done so, before commenting. I take no responsibility for those who do not read it and do not understand. 

Also just to add there is a difference between hackers and crackers. You may not agree but I have a good reason and it is summed up here from wikipedia dot com - "Sometimes alternate terms such as "cracker" are used in an attempt to more exactly distinguish which category of hacker is intended, or when attempting to put a contextual distance between the categories due to the Hacker definition controversy."

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… _fine_ …


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